And noticed that I did not have the same answer as my area (section of state, whole state, midwest lol) for a good number of them. I’m guessing this has to do with a few things: I lived in New Jersey for the first 4 years of my life, my mom grew up in CA, and I’ve lived overseas for 7 years.

I have had people I grew up with say that I don’t sound like I came from there (like I sound similar, but different). So how about you guys? What were your answers for the 22 maps and did they correspond to your area?

For reference (in case anyone is curious), I lived in NW Indiana for 12 years (age 4-16), so that’s where I’m considering my “home” area with this.

This is what I got for the questions corresponding to those maps… (not sure why it pasted in so big!)

I say been … “as in ‘sit'”

As in “bo”

“cray-awn”

“loyer”

No to slaw

You guys

“man-aze”

Pa-“jam”-as

“pick-AHN”

Soda

Crawfish

Traffic circle

“sear-up”

Sub

Water Fountain

Sneakers OR tennis shoes

Highway

Sunshower

“The City” is contextual and I would think has to do with where you are, so

I say “the devil’s beating his wife behind the kitchen door”, different than my area.

“The City” is NYC to me, same as my area

I say “brew thru”, but we don’t have them in my area, so there’s no name for it here.

“Merry, mary, and marry” are all the same, same as my area.

So I’m half-and-half. Most of these are explained by the fact that my dad is from Southern California and then I was born and raised in Middle Tennessee and went to college in Vermont and Ohio. I’m a weird linguistic mix.

car-mel – samebeh-n (like the ‘e’ sound in ‘set’) – same boo-wie – differentcran – different (I don’t even see that on the map)loy-yer – slightly differentslaw – no, differentyou guys – samemah-nayze – otherpajamas, ‘jam’ – samePEE-can – different (though I NEVER say this because…gross)soda – different (I hate the word ‘pop’)crayfish – sameroundabout – different (we only had them in this area within the last couple of years, so I’m shocked we even have a word for it)sir-up – samesub – samedrinking fountain – sametennis shoes – samehighway – samesunshower – different (wtf, everyone I know calls it that)“The City” – otherdrive-through liquor store – what?? same/different as it looks like my area is split?Mary/merry/marry same – same

I’m an upstate NY transplant, that moved to the Chicago suburbs. The only thing that really sticks out (to me) is the people native to here tend to say “yous” like “yous guys”, or “it’s good to see yous”.

drives me bananas.

I probably say all sorts of things differently, but I can’t think of any besides saying soda instead of pop 😉

As an Australian living in Canada I pronounce everything differently. It’s amazing how many people tell me I’m saying it wrong. Or they can’t understand what I’m saying because of my accent. I sound half english half aussie so it blows my mind.

The other day I had a girlfriend around, this is how our conversation went down:

I say “bowie” as “boo”, same as my area. (UPDATE: Enthusiastic Marylanders have alerted us that there is indeed a town named “Bowie, Md.” that is pronounced “Boo-wie.” <– True story, we have a number of friends that live in Bowie. XD)

I say “crayon” as “cray-awn”, different than my area.

I say “lawyer” as “loyer”, same as my area.

I say “cole slaw”, different than my area.

I say “y’all”, different than my area.

I say “mayonaisse” as “man-aze”, same as my area.

I say “pajamas” as in “father”, same as my area.

I say “pecan” as “pick-ahn”, different than my area.

I say “soda”, same as my area.

I say “crawdaddy”, different than my area. (I am one of the few I know who adds the -dy on the end)

I say “traffic circle”, same as my area.

I say “syrup” as “sear”, different than my area.

I say “sub”, same as my area. (That said, Wawa has hoagies and they’re bomb diggity)

I say “water fountain”, same as my area.

I say “tennis shoes”, same as my area.

I say interstate or highway. None of this freeway nonsense.

There is no term for rain when there’s sunshine. That’s a rarity here.

“The City” actually Washington DC for us. “New York City” is New York City here.

We have drive through liquor stores but we don’t have a term.

“Merry, mary, and marry” are all the same, same as my area. (But most natives say Murr-land as Maryland instead of Mer-i-land)

It’s so funny that this came up because I was just listening to my co-workers discuss different names for the same thing (desk vs credensa; I forget the other one). xDDDD

@FauxBoho: We had similar problems at my old work (a resort in northern Ontario), when Americans would come up for a week. It wasn’t about pronounciation, but the actual meaning of words. For us, ice(d) tea is like Lipon, Nestea, Barqs. For them, ice(d) tea is… cold tea.

I’m a Canadian transplant to the southern US and have lived in two areas of my home country with very specific regional dialects/ways of speaking. Despite this, I still pronounce nearly all of these the same as they do in NC. With the exception of “law-yer.” Because that’s weird.

Also, interestingly, everyone I know from NC also calls the rain that happens while it’s sunny ‘the devil’s beating his wife’ which isn’t what it shows on the map. Kind of funny.

I’ve looked at this map before, and found it very interesting, but I’ll post along! I live in southern Iowa, and have all my life.

“Car-ml” (but I sometimes say carra-mel)

I say “been” like the name Ben

“Bowie” with “bo”

“Cray-awn”

“Loyer”

Sometimes I refer to coleslaw as just “slaw,” but there’s also the apple slaw and whatnot as mentioned

You all or you guys

I say it “May-O-naize”

“Jam”

“pee-KAHN” or “PEE-can,” depends.

Pop

Crawfish or dad

Roundabout

“Sir”

Sub or hoagie

Water/drinking fountain

Tennis shoes, though around here people use the top three interchangibly.

I’d say interstate is what we call “freeways” around here.

No term or expression.

If I say I’m going to “the City,” I mean Des Moines.

We don’t have drive-thru liquor stores, so no term here!

Mary/Marry same, Merry I stress the “e”

This isn’t on the map, but something that I’ve noticed I do personally is how I pronounce “for” – I pronounce it “fer,” unless I really stop and think before I say it. I also say “dawn” as “don.” My manager at work is from New Orleans, and she likes to correct our linguistics periodically.

I loved that map when I first saw it. I studied sociolinguistics in undergrad and was very fascinated by it. I also enjoyed economic geography. We were allowed to build our own majors, but there weren’t enough classes of this type to piece together a full major or minor from it, but I would have. Majored in Int’l Relations, minored in Foreign Language instead. When you think about it, it’s pretty much the same 2 disciplines but on a global scale.